The woman behind the reception desk at Rosewood Hall would not look at me directly. She kept her eyes somewhere between the glossy surface of the desk and the enormous floral arrangement beside her computer, as though the ranunculus could protect her from the conversation she was being forced to have. She had just told me my wedding venue had been cancelled.
Two months before the date. I stood there holding my copy of the contract, the thick cream-colored pages I had printed carefully and kept in a folder in my desk drawer for six months because they represented something too important to treat carelessly. I did not say anything at first.
The lobby fountain made its elegant sound behind me. The chandeliers threw soft warm light across the marble floor. It was a beautiful room, the kind of room I had chosen deliberately because it was the most beautiful room I had ever been inside, and I had wanted my wedding to happen inside something beautiful.
When I finally spoke, I asked why. The receptionist shifted her weight. She pressed her hands flat against the underside of the desk.
She said the words very quietly, as if lowering the volume might reduce the damage. The Wellington family had offered triple. Their daughter’s engagement party would be hosted here instead.
I felt it in my chest before I fully processed it in my mind, a tightening that was almost physical, as if the air had been pressed out of the room and replaced with something thinner and harder to breathe. I did not need to ask who the Wellingtons were. I knew exactly who they were.
My aunt Vivian’s family. My mother’s sister. The family that moved through the world as though every room they entered had been arranged in advance for their arrival, and everyone already in it was merely scenery.
And Chloe Wellington, the daughter in question. My cousin Chloe, who had called me dollar-store Barbie when I was sixteen, in front of a table full of people, because my clothes were not as expensive as hers and she had known exactly how to make that fact feel like a verdict. I still remembered the way my face had gone hot.
The story doesn’t end here — it continues on the next page.
Tap READ MORE to discover the rest 🔎👇
